Forgiven_BooksGoSocial Historical Fiction
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tired and layered in dust, to find General Tucker’s command in
possession and making ready to move. Soon after, they left for
Klip Drift on the Modder River to rendezvous with French,
escorting an equally large convoy of wagons and leaving
behind a company of Gordons to guard against occupation by
the Boers.
The laborious and time-consuming process of getting each
wagon across the river began at once and continued
relentlessly throughout the night. While that was going on we
were ordered to occupy a house nearby where we discovered
there was a bonanza of horse feed and free-running chickens, a
most unexpected bounty to which we liberally helped
ourselves. Next morning, we returned to camp at first light to
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receive our day’s orders, just as the last of the wagons had
come across from the opposite shore.
On our side of the river, the wagons that had crossed earlier
were parked in rows, all harnessed up and ready. The black
drivers were standing about, hands in pockets with smiling
faces while they waited for the order to move. We were also
standing around, poring over a map with the staff liaison
officers, when the entire camp suddenly came under fire. Zip,
zip, whistled the Mausers’ as they passed overhead. We all hit
the deck.
The Borderers and the Gordons quickly took up defensive
positions and for the next hour an exchange of long-range rifle
fire took place, during which time the shooting steadily
increased in intensity, as more Boers may have arrived on the
scene and became involved.
At first their fire was not particularly effectual, for there
were no casualties except for a mule or two and other than
waste our time when we should have been underway, it was
unclear just what the Boers had hoped to achieve. After a while
though, it became abundantly clear that the Boers had planned
their little escapade deviously well.
They had waited until Tucker had left and had timed their
attack so that all of our wagons were on their side of the river;
now it would take an entire day to re-cross them back to the
other side. The Borderers should have had outposts on every
hill within a three-mile radius of the drift, but had obviously
failed to do so. This was not an uncommon error by British
infantry and highlighted the inability of their officers to grasp
the basic tenets of this form of warfare.
The black drivers were frightened by the shooting and
bolted for the shelter of the riverbank, leaving their mules and
wagons exposed in the open. We should be moving now; the
Boers were firing from long range and if we made a break for
it we would soon be far off, but instead, the Borderers took
their time, debating the pros and cons of staying or leaving
while we sat about twiddling our thumbs and shooting at
phantoms we couldn’t see. Eventually, common sense
prevailed when they came to the conclusion that the best way
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forward was to get the convoy going and get the hell out of
here.
We ran after the drivers and ordered them to return to their
wagons. They refused to do any such thing and we had a
dingdong tiff with their leader that continued on for a good
quarter of an hour. Eventually, one of the lads lost all patience.
He raised his carbine in the air and made it plain that he would
shoot all of them if they did not comply with our directive
immediately. Head shaking and arm waving stopped. They
looked at each other and decided that driving may not be such
a bad idea and ran all the way back to the wagons, with our lot
close behind. They had no sooner climbed up into their seats
and taken up the reins when we heard a loud bang in the
distance. Surprised, we all looked up in time to see a large
cloud of powder smoke curl into the air some miles away.
Next thing, there was a far louder explosion right amongst
us. Men ducked, mules jumped and brayed hysterically while
we were pelted with stones and dust filled the air. It was plain
that the Boers had artillery and they also had our range. It was
also perfectly clear that they had not been plinking away
ineffectually; it was all designed to keep us dithering so their
artillery had time to arrive and pin us down. Thanks to the
Borderers and their incomprehensible muddling, we had been
delivered into their hands.
The black drivers threw down their reins and bolted back to
the riverbank with us white boys’ right behind. As they ran
away I jumped down from the wagon I was standing on and
jogged along, casting my eyes about as I went, checking to see
if anyone remained behind or was in need of any help.
Seeing none, I leaped over the bank in pursuit of the others
when I heard another loud bang as I slithered down the slope.
A crushing force then seemed to lift me and I experienced the
terrifying sensation of flying.
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Chapter Twenty-six
RIET RIVER, Orange Free State. February
1900
My eyes slowly opened. They were full of sand and I could
barely see. I was lying on my back and someone was kicking
my leg. My head hurt and despite the fog in my brain, I was
acutely aware that everywhere my anatomy felt achy and
broken. I tried to move and groaned with the effort, only to
give it up and begin rubbing some of the grime from my eyes.
My leg was still being kicked and as my eyes watered I wished
whoever it was would go away, but I found once my eyes had
cleared that I was staring into the muzzle of a Mauser.
I stopped rubbing and slowly looked upwards, following
the line of its barrel to discover the smirking face of a Boer. He
was about my age and wore homespun clothes, a wide-
brimmed felt hat that was pulled low on his forehead and
cartridge bandoliers hung crisscrossed from his shoulders. Like
me, his chin was covered with stubble and his overall
appearance was one of living rough.
“Do not move Englishman, I have you covered!”
I had no inclination to argue. I lifted my head and became
even more aware that my head throbbed and blood seemed to
be trickling down the side of my face.
“Help me sit up,” I croaked. “I think I’ve injured my back.”
“You no move!” he admonished, suddenly becoming
agitated, and waved the muzzle of his Mauser for emphasis.
Sighing, I let my head flop back on the stones while I lifted
my hand to probe for injury. There was a lump on my forehead
that felt like half an egg and there was congealed blood in my
hair; shell fragments would have sliced me open so I guessed
that stone fragments must have hit me. That was the trouble
with this forsaken country, there were far too many stones.
Next I wriggled my toes. I couldn’t see them but I could feel
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them rubbing on the inside of my boots, so I knew that I hadn’t
broken my back.
A great feeling of anxiety left me, just as another Boer
appeared in my field of vision. He stood looking down at me
with his hands on his hips and spoke something in Afrikaans to
my captor, who stepped back, nodding in agreement, as the
other grabbed my arms and hauled me into a sitting position. I
winced, but I was sure then that I was battered, but not broken.
Next, he circled behind to grab me under the armpits and
hoist me to my feet, holding me momentarily until I got my
balance before looking me in the eye. He said something in
Afrikaans and motioned with his head to indicate that I should
follow. Shakily, I did. I stumbled erratically up the bank and
once we were on level ground I paused to look around for any
sign of my companions. There was none. All of them must
have escaped. Typical, isn’t it, you’d have thought at least one
of them would have the decency to get caught so that misery
would have some company.
Wagons and their mule teams were scattered all over the
plain and commandos were swarming over them to discover
what lay beneath the covers. There was a lot of camaraderie
and shouting going on, so they must have been happy with
what they found. Some of the mule teams had been panicked
by the shellfire and had run off for miles, while groups of
commandos were ranging far and wide in an endeavour to
recover them. By now I was starting to feel giddy and was
probably suffering from shock, but there was nothing to be
done about that so I continued to weave and follow my captor,
who was steering me towards a group of Boers some distance
ahead.
As we walked, we passed a large hole in the ground and
the burnt and splintered remains of a wagon lay scattered all
around. There was so little left of it that it could only have
been a munitions wagon that had taken a direct hit.
When we reached the group of Boers, we stopped and
waited on the outside of the circle while their leader continued
to speak. They were a ragtag bunch who had been living rough
and may have washed even less than I had. Some wore
threadbare suits while others wore farm labourer’s clothes. All
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had ammunition bandoliers, wore different styles of hats, and
calf-length boots seemed the only thing which appeared to be
standard. Some of those nearest turned to take a cursory look
at me, but there was only curiosity in their eyes.
When their meeting was over they broke into groups that
walked off in different directions, while their leader spoke to
my captors and looked me over. He was in his forties, solidly
built and about average height, with a square jaw and pleasant,
masculine features. He wore a low topper hat, dark green
corduroy jacket, and moleskin trousers tucked into calf-length
boots. He squinted and scratched the stubble on his chin while
he spoke to my captors, before walking off to chat with
someone else. Later, I was to learn that he was none other than
Christian de Wet, the notorious commando leader, who as the
war progressed was to become steadily more famous as the
‘Phantom of the Veld.’
My English-speaking captor bade me to follow him and the
three of us walked to one of the abandoned wagons. His name
was Johan and when we reached the wagon he turned to me.
“You drive this wagon.” His tone was abrupt and business-
like. “You wait until the convoy is formed and you join to it. If
you attempt escape, Hans will shoot you.” With that, he
walked away without a backward glance. I shot a look at Hans
and Hans eyed me back. His head was cocked slightly, his hat
brim low and a steely look hovered in his eyes.
All of which was less than wonderful. I attempted to climb
up into the driver’s seat and only managed it with a shove from
Hans. How anyone could assume that I would run off in my
present battered condition was beyond all comprehension.
Then we waited. Nothing was happening and we continued
to wait, until after a while my head began to throb and I didn’t
feel so good. I noticed the horizon seemed to be shrinking in,
my eyes felt strained in the harsh light and I had more and
more difficulty thinking. I slid down slowly on the bench seat
and shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun. I must have
dozed off, for the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake
by a medic with a Red Cross band on his arm.
He was about forty-five years of age and gentlemanly in
appearance and manner. He wore a grey cotton suit without a
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jacket and in spite of the heat his shirt was buttoned all the way
up. He had flecks of grey in his otherwise dark hair and a
goatee beard, which eminently suited his academic demeanour.
“I am Doctor Heinrich von Bok. Who are you?”
My mind was nearly blank – I could scarcely think; the
brightness of the sun made me squint and it hurt my eyes. His
image was blurry and I had trouble attempting to respond.
“Ah… I’m Richard Wilson.”
“It is good you remember. Now, let me look at your head.”
I bent over so he could get a better look, after which he pulled
my head up and bade me follow his upturned finger with my
eyes as he drew the finger back and forth.
I felt barely conscious and didn’t want to play whatever it
was that we were doing. His finger seemed blurry and I had
difficulty keeping up, so he pried my lids apart while staring
intently into my eyes with a small, handle-less magnifying
glass that looked like a monocle.
“Hmm, a concussion. I think you should travel in the
ambulance wagon.”
He turned to Hans and said something in Afrikaans to
which Hans merely shrugged. They caught me as I fell off the
wagon and half walked and dragged me to an ambulance
where they propped me on the shade side, against one of its
wheels.
Hans wandered off and the doctor began to wash the lump
on my head. I closed my eyes. The water was soothing and
made me feel better.
“You are German?” I said. “You speak good English.” It
surprised me that through the fuzziness of my mind I had
somehow managed to notice that.
“Yes, my mother was English and I trained at the Royal
School of Medicine in London.”
I thought about that for a minute. I slowly opened my eyes,
but the light hurt, so I shut them again. “What is a German
with an English mother doing here?”
“I am a volunteer. Britain is in the wrong here you know.
There is no moral right about what is going on here. These
people have few doctors and a great need, so here I am.”
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I made no comment. Moral ideology was distinctly beyond
me at present.
“So, you are New Zealander yes? What are you doing
here?”
I hesitated before I answered. “I volunteered. I thought it
might be a great adventure.”
“Ah, you young men. Have you had enough adv
enture yet?
“Probably. Being starved and tired all the time is more
tedious than adventurous.”
“So, you volunteer for adventure and I volunteer for duty.
Now we have all the duty we could possibly wish. Ironic, is it
not?”
I had to admit that he had a point.
“You have a girl back home, perhaps?”
“Yes.” I wondered where this was going.
“And you will marry her when you get home, yes?”
“Yes, I hope so.”
“That is good. Perhaps then, you will consider the
foolishness of getting yourself killed out here in this
wilderness. Your being dead will not change the outcome of
this war, is that so?”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “I guess so.”
He picked up a pair of scissors and cut some hair, then
dabbed more water on my head. It was a delicious feeling and
the throbbing seemed to recede.
“What do you do when you are not a soldier on
adventure?”
“I’m a farmer.” It was an instinctive response. It now
seemed so long since I had farmed anything that I must have
been thinking about another life.
“Ah, you see, these people are farmers too. They are just
like you!”
I said nothing. I had always pictured them as gun-toting
lunatics with a mad gleam in their eye. That was the popular
perception back home, anyway. Perhaps I needed to revise that.
Then I thought about that poor blighter we killed near
Rensburg, the one who wouldn’t put his rifle down. That was a
classic example of a needless death if ever I saw one. Was he
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mad? Did war encourage people to do rash things? It probably
did.
That afternoon we travelled until dark and then some. The
commandos were keen to put as much distance between them
and any British patrols as they possibly could and they
achieved that. I travelled on a wagon behind the ambulance
with a number of other wounded and I had the least of all to
complain about.
One Boer had been kicked in the stomach by a mule and
was in a lot of pain. He must have ruptured something inside to
be as bad as that. Another was shot in the foot and didn’t look
happy either. It was obviously agonising and if that wasn’t
enough to worry about, he would also know that bone damage
would be severe. Once we stopped somewhere for any length
of time, his foot would probably have to be cut off.